FIRST METHADONE CLINIC OPENS; LEGISLATORS CONSIDER CHANGING LAW

HUDSON, N.H. (AP) The state's first short-term methadone clinic opened
quietly last October, and the facility's director says most of his patients
are people who live within a 15 to 20 minute drive.

Robert Potter says his clinic's list of clients proves that heroin addiction
is a serious problem in New Hampshire.

"People will say, `We don't have a problem here, not in our town,"' Potter
said. "I beg to differ, and I have the zip codes to prove it."

Right now, about 400 New Hampshire addicts travel every day to clinics in
Maine or Massachusetts to get methadone, a drug that helps them kick the
heroin habit and start leading productive lives again. Some must travel 200
miles or more each day, a trip that makes it hard for them to work.

That's because New Hampshire law only allows short-term methadone treatment
up to six months, although there is an exception for pregnant women. Potter
says it takes most addicts 18 months to two years to complete methadone
treatment successfully.

Now legislators are considering two bills that would allow long-term
treatment in New Hampshire, one of only eight states that ban it.

The bills are sponsored by Sen. Katie Wheeler, D-Durham, who believes it is
time for New Hampshire to take a public health approach to heroin addiction
instead of continuing to deny a problem exists.

"There's a perception that we'll be soft on crime if we do this, that these
will be places for addicts to hang out and sell the drug on the street,"
Wheeler said. "We don't have a very grown-up, nonpolitical view of the
situation."

One bill, approved unanimously at a Senate hearing last week, would allow
Potter's clinic, Merrimack River Medical Services, to offer long-term
methadone treatment until the state approves a more permanent program. The
other bill, also approved, would set guidelines for similar clinics to open
on a two-year, pilot-project basis.

The bills are supported by the state Department of Health and Human
Services, the New Hampshire Medical Society and various drug treatment
specialists.

They argue that methadone treatment works. Although methadone is itself an
addictive narcotic, it allows users to withdraw from heroin and start
functioning again.

Most people who use it go back to work, stop stealing money to support their
heroin habits, get counseling and get treatment for other health problems,
advocates say.

"They don't get high, they don't get stimulated they get normal," said Dr.
John Dalco, who works part time at Potter's clinic.

The widespread availability of methadone treatment in most states also has
led to a big drop in heroin-related deaths, authorities say.

The bill's supporters also say heroin use is on the rise in New Hampshire,
as elsewhere, because it has become cheaper, purer and more available.

The state's Drug Abuse Warning Network found that mentions of heroin use by
patients in hospital emergency rooms doubled each year from 1996 to 1998.
State statistics also indicate that it has replaced cocaine as the third
most popular drug in New Hampshire, after alcohol and marijuana.

Dr. Gerard Hevern, an Allenstown doctor who specializes in drug treatment,
said heroin use is growing rapidly among high school students.

"Heroin is very common from about 10th grade on," Hevern said. "It is as
readily accessible as beer in any of the high schools locally and throughout
New Hampshire."

State health officials would like to see the Legislature skip the pilot
project phase of the bill and just pass legislation that would allow for
long-term treatment, so addicts can start getting help.

"It's not the people in treatment you're worried about," said Rosemary
Shannon, chief of treatment services for the state's division of drug abuse
prevention. "It's the people who aren't in treatment."